The Gencost report [1] now takes into account long term operations for nuclear plants, and unsurprisingly does not find that it lowers the cost per kWh.
It also reaffirms that baseload is dead. Sure you can technically run nuclear plants at 90% capacity factor like how it is done in the US.
But as the article reports:
> What's more, Mr Graham said that while Australia didn't have any nuclear plants, it had plenty of black coal generators, which were analogous in many ways because they were designed to run full throttle most of the time.
> And Australia's black coal generators, he said, were operating at ever lower capacity factors as cheap renewable energy — particularly solar power — flooded into the market and squeezed out conventional sources.
> "But we continue to also use a range which recognises that some base-load generation can operate down closer to 50-53 per cent."
What is incredible is that renewables deliver. From a nascent industry 20 years ago to today making up 2/3 of global energy investment due to simply being cheaper and better.
We are now starting to work out the large grid scale models including storage, transmission and firming and for every passing year the calculations become easier and cheaper.
We have an interesting decade ahead of us as renewables disrupt sector by sector allowing us to decarbonize without lowering living standards.
I for one can't wait to see the new ways of being disingenuous and deceptive the likes of Peter Dutton find to spin things so they can continue to create opportunities for their buddies to make a profit at the expense of the rest of us.
They've already white-anted the report in the SMH quoted as saying it shows signs of bias.
If they and their useful helpmeets in "the Australian" can sustain ignoring it, and accusing the CSIRO of being biassed, they won't have to refute it.
TL;DR Dutton and OBrien will not accept it, no matter what the CSIRO or anyone else says, and their rejection was both predictable and predicted.
If you're coming here to dispute about Nuclear power on any grounds other than a) economics and b) in australia and c) from now forward, not some hypothetical past or future then please don't. The name of the report is the GEN COST report. It's about economics. It's not pro- or anti- nuclear on environmental, social or political grounds, it's a reasoned case on the forseeable issues in construction cost and cost of generation over the lifetime, in the context of Australian economics for electricity.
Nuclear works in other places. That isn't disputed by CSIRO although they do note the costs in the long term in other places, the LCOE, is not as low as Dutton or OBrien want to claim, and nor is the lifetime generation level as high as they want to claim.
Transmission effects, and the necessity of displacing home rooftop solar as well as scale commercial solar, wind and batteries pose massive political and economic risks to everyone, and if they think about it, Dutton and OBrien too: An awful lot of LNP voters have solar on their roof and being told it's got to go will not make them happy.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 17.2 ms ] threadIt also reaffirms that baseload is dead. Sure you can technically run nuclear plants at 90% capacity factor like how it is done in the US.
But as the article reports:
> What's more, Mr Graham said that while Australia didn't have any nuclear plants, it had plenty of black coal generators, which were analogous in many ways because they were designed to run full throttle most of the time.
> And Australia's black coal generators, he said, were operating at ever lower capacity factors as cheap renewable energy — particularly solar power — flooded into the market and squeezed out conventional sources.
> "But we continue to also use a range which recognises that some base-load generation can operate down closer to 50-53 per cent."
What is incredible is that renewables deliver. From a nascent industry 20 years ago to today making up 2/3 of global energy investment due to simply being cheaper and better.
We are now starting to work out the large grid scale models including storage, transmission and firming and for every passing year the calculations become easier and cheaper.
We have an interesting decade ahead of us as renewables disrupt sector by sector allowing us to decarbonize without lowering living standards.
[1]: https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co...
If they and their useful helpmeets in "the Australian" can sustain ignoring it, and accusing the CSIRO of being biassed, they won't have to refute it.
TL;DR Dutton and OBrien will not accept it, no matter what the CSIRO or anyone else says, and their rejection was both predictable and predicted.
If you're coming here to dispute about Nuclear power on any grounds other than a) economics and b) in australia and c) from now forward, not some hypothetical past or future then please don't. The name of the report is the GEN COST report. It's about economics. It's not pro- or anti- nuclear on environmental, social or political grounds, it's a reasoned case on the forseeable issues in construction cost and cost of generation over the lifetime, in the context of Australian economics for electricity.
Nuclear works in other places. That isn't disputed by CSIRO although they do note the costs in the long term in other places, the LCOE, is not as low as Dutton or OBrien want to claim, and nor is the lifetime generation level as high as they want to claim.
Transmission effects, and the necessity of displacing home rooftop solar as well as scale commercial solar, wind and batteries pose massive political and economic risks to everyone, and if they think about it, Dutton and OBrien too: An awful lot of LNP voters have solar on their roof and being told it's got to go will not make them happy.